The motion passed by the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) urging member states to scrap work permit fee, is a positive step towards regional integration.

Rwanda is the only member state that has that policy in place in line with the Common Market Protocoal. 

While it would be ideal to do away completely with the fees, some countries are apprehensive for fear of seeing  their job market swamped by better qualified manpower and therefore put in place prohibitive conditions to qualify.

It beats logic when we preach regional integration yet we put spokes in the wheels by creating more tariff barriers. True integration can only be a success if there was mutual trust among member states and the only way to achieve that is free interaction among citizens of the East African Community.

Take an example of border communities. To them, borders are just an imaginary nuisance that are simply ignored.Economic exchanges do more to enhance cohesion and family links make it even more difficult to differentiate citizenship.

The more than 130 million citizens of the region could experience the same borderless feeling if free movement of people and goods ceased to be mere words. Business would expand and communities would learn from each other to make them realty cohesive. 

EAC political leaders who are still hesitant to open up should look beyond  short time political mileage and instead  put ahead long term regional interests.